


Without Anchor

by umbrafix



Series: Things that ought to have been in the series but were tragically left out [6]
Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-19 17:28:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9452285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/umbrafix/pseuds/umbrafix
Summary: Missing scenes from episode 4.3, Lazaretto





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, a break from my usual format to do the same missing scene three times. Here are three ways the conversation could have gone between Thursday and Morse as they sit in the pub at the end :)

_“Tell me to mind own business, sir, but is everything alright – with Mrs Thursday?”_

_“Nothing that Joan walking through the door wouldn’t put right. She misses her, that’s all. Suppose we all do._

_“Think she’ll come back?”_

 

Morse looked down at the edge of the bar, at the lighter material showing through the chipped varnish.

 

His lack of answer seemed to count as enough of one, because Thursday gave a curt nod beside him and took a long draught of his pint.

 

“Who’d have thought we’d end up like this?” Thursday said, mostly to himself. Morse drew his lips back in a facsimile of a smile. “I mean, I know kids grow up, leave home, but…”

 

Morse took a gulp of his own pint to occupy his mouth.

 

Thursday sighed. Looked down into his glass. “Just been a bit of a shock, it happening this way.”

 

Morse nodded.

 

“Ten weeks. That’s what my Win says it’s been. Can you believe I’d lost count?”

 

The thin sliver of ale in the bottom of his glass seemed to mock Morse. He drank it, rolling it around his mouth, and signalled the bartender for another.

 

“She’s, uh…” Thursday went quiet for a minute, and Morse glanced over. The worn, lost look on Thursday’s face sent another curl of guilt through his stomach. He couldn’t say anything, but the thought of it made him feel…

 

He grimaced, and sipped his fresh pint.

 

After a minute of contemplating the depths of his own glass, Thursday continued with, “She was so… she was fine, to start with. Better than me.” There was a pause. “Just carried on. Got a job, even, so as she didn’t have to sit at home alone. While I – well, you know what I was like.”

 

Morse opened his mouth, then couldn’t think of anything to say.

 

A quick sideways look, and Thursday huffed. “You don’t have to say anything, I know. And I couldn’t… well. But now she’s…” He trailed off again, and Morse sat there silently.

 

The Thursday family had been an almost mythical structure when Morse had first known them – a husband and wife who so obviously cared for each other, for their children. Like one of those stories you read, or a television show. Morse had been there over the years to see it fragment, to see cracks and splinters form. The discovery of Luisa Armstrong. Thursday’s injury. Sam joining the army. Now it was Joan leaving.

 

Mrs Thursday, who had always seemed a bastion of strength from Thursday’s description, seemed to be crumbling.

 

And Joan… Morse closed his eyes for a moment and remembered her guilt, her refusal. He wanted to be angry at her, he  _was_ angry with her, except at the same time he couldn’t be because she was so _lost_.

 

“It’s not just the sandwiches,” Thursday said sadly, and Morse drew in a quiet breath.

 

“No?” he asked, trying for an even tone.

 

“She’s not been right for a while now. I don’t know what to do.”

 

Morse looked into his pint again. “Maybe it just needs time?”

 

“I’d have said the same, except time just seems to be making it worse. What if it keeps on like this? What if she-“ Thursday stopped, cleared his throat. “Sorry, I’m – sorry.”

 

“No,” Morse said quickly. “No, that’s… it’s alright.”

 

Thursday nodded, a little stiffly, and they sat in silence for a minute while Morse tried to work out what to say.

 

“She’s got pills, from the doctor,” Thursday eventually said without prompting. “For her nerves.”

 

The squirming feeling in Morse’s stomach intensified, and in that moment he longed not to be there, not to have the confidence of this man.

 

“What the hell do I do?” Thursday said wearily.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Take two. And this one's my guilty pleasure, because at every Thursday and Morse conversation in the whole episode this is what I wanted to see!
> 
> So here, it is, a tangent from the previous conversation :)

_“Ten weeks. That’s what my Win says it’s been. Can you believe I’d lost count?”_

 

“It feels longer,” Morse said, the words coming unbidden.

 

His speech seemed to loosen something in Thursday, because the man sighed, rolling his shoulders. “Doesn’t it? But it still surprises me some mornings to come down and not find her there. I… well.” There was a long pause, then, painfully, “Sometimes I wonder how we’ll go on, the missus and me.”

 

Thursday had looked straight ahead as he was speaking, but Morse could see the lines of weary strain around his eyes. He thought again of Mrs Thursday’s words, of her worrying that she’d done something wrong.

 

He opened his mouth to deliver what would have amounted to nothing more than a platitude, to say it would be alright, then closed it with a grimace. He remembered his own anger and fear before Joan had called. The _not knowing_.

 

“Hypothetically,” he said, eyes fixed on the bar. “If…” He stopped, and his heart beat a wild tattoo, because he hadn’t meant to speak those words, hadn’t meant to do this.

 

There was the squeak of the barstool as Thursday shifted to face him, and Morse could feel the weight of his stare boring into the side of his face.

 

“If someone knew something,” Thursday said grimly, “they should bloody well say so.”

 

Morse let out a long breath, didn’t look up.

 

“If you’ve got something to say then say it, Endeavour,” Thursday growled, a sudden flash of ire.

 

Morse’s throat was tight though, uncooperative, and what the  _hell_ was he doing?

 

And now Thursday’s exhalation matched his own of a moment ago. “Lad?” Thursday said, and the sudden softness of it was much worse than the anger.

 

Morse swallowed, said, “I-“ but his voice cracked and somehow couldn’t go any further.

 

They sat there, in a still and silent bubble as the rest of the world moved on around them. Finally Thursday asked, voice low, “She alright?” and Morse gave a jerky nod.

 

Thursday’s breath came out in a low moan, and when Morse forced himself to look he found Thursday’s eyes closed and his expression pained. It was too private a moment, and Morse turned back to his ale, taking two gulps and almost choking on it as it went down the wrong way.

 

“I was right, wasn’t I?“ Thursday said when Morse had finished spluttering. “She’s not coming back.”

 

Morse’s fingers gripped the handle of his pint glass a little more tightly. Half a minute passed, then, “No,” he said, and it was an admission, a confession; a statement of guilt.

 

“Bloody hell,” Thursday said, and again, “Bloody hell.” He placed both of his hands flat on the surface of the bar, and contemplated the backs of them. “How long have you-“ and then his mind seemed to make a connection. “That day you took off? You found her, didn’t you? How?”

 

Morse had been expecting explosions, demands; he didn’t know quite how to deal with a Thursday who was just _accepting_ of everything Morse told him.

 

“I had a call,” he said slowly. “Reverse charges. There was – there was no one on the other end.”

 

“But you tracked it down anyway?” Thursday said, and there was a faint echo of gratitude in his tone.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Went door to door, did you?” And Morse closed his eyes, feeling suddenly exposed - because what reason could there be for him to have tracked Joan down, especially since he hadn’t done it on Thursday’s behalf? “And? How was she?”

 

Morse huffed out a quick, bitterly amused laugh. “Fine,” was all he permitted himself to say. He raised his eyes to Thursday. “She wouldn’t come back,” he said. “I tried.”

 

“And asked you not to tell us, did she? Jesus. What’s that girl thinking? When I think of what her mother’s been going through…”

 

Morse ran an idle finger around the rim of his glass. “What will you do?” he asked, and finally his tone was even again.

 

Thursday blew out a breath. “Buggered if I know. Need to tell Win somehow though. She’s not… If Joan’s alright, but she’s not coming back, then Win needs to know.”

 

Thursday nodded to himself, and Morse felt something which had been tightly twisted ease a little. Morse already knew he’d go back to check on Joan again; that he couldn’t just leave things like that, not knowing if she really _would_ be alright. But this at least - this he’d done right.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And finally, yet another direction the imaginary non-existent pub conversation could have gone!

Morse didn’t realise he was well on the way to being drunk until he got up to take a piss and the pub swum around him a little. It was unusual because Thursday usually stopped him after a couple of pints, a nagging chant about going the way of the bottle ready to spring to his lips at a moment’s notice. Not today, though. Today, Thursday had been drinking right along with him.

 

Morse checked his watch, blinking at the face until he believed what he saw  – near three o’ clock. They’d been here for two hours, then, and not much said between them.

 

When he got back, there was a fresh pint waiting for him next to the remnants of his old one. No mention of that fact that they should have been back at work long ago; of the fact that they clearly weren’t going to be going back.

 

Thursday waited until he’d been sat for a minute. “Something’s eating you. Not the case, something else.”

 

Morse looked his way, then back down at his pint. “No, nothing,” he said.

 

There was a sigh.

 

“No need for that; think I can’t tell you’re lying at a hundred paces? I meant it when I said I’d lend an ear.” Thursday paused. Morse said nothing. “Just an offer.”

 

An old, peeling label was half-stuck to the bar. Morse worried at the edge of it, took another swig of his beer.

 

“I saw-“ he said, and then his brain caught up with his mouth and clamped down around the words.

 

Thursday was looking at him curiously.

 

Morse smiled a tight smile.

 

“Saw what?” Thursday asked.

 

Joan.

 

 _Fuck_.

 

In lieu of an answer, Morse tilted his mug to the side and watched the head of the ale stay full and still while the gold swirled beneath it. His mind felt similarly disorganised for a moment, the events of the last days crashing beneath the surface.

 

“Oh, just someone that I used to know,” he said eventually.

 

And that had applied to a lot of people recently. Too many.

 

Thursday left it there, and Morse made it through another half pint before he said, “The woman who was almost my mother-in-law.”

 

Silence, but the listening kind of silence.

 

“She was at the hospital visiting her husband – he’d had a stroke.”

 

Another silence, and this time Thursday seemed to think he needed prompting. “Almost father-in law, then?”

 

“Yes,” Morse agreed. Then, “I was engaged to their daughter, when I was at university.” He took a mouthful of ale, letting it push out his cheeks, almost wincing as he downed it in too fast a swallow. “Susan.”

 

“I see,” Thursday said gravely.

 

“I’m not sure I do, sometimes. See.” Morse took a moment to think that he’d really drunk more than he meant to with Thursday around. “We were engaged,” he said again.

 

When he’d told Trewlove earlier, it had been a barb. Revenge for her asking, for all that it was only spiting himself. Now it was… he didn’t know what it was. The fact that she’d asked, the fact he’d talked to Caroline… it had stirred things best left forgotten.

 

“I’m sorry, Morse.”

 

Morse nodded, head falling forward so that he had to brush a lock of hair back from his forehead. “He was – Edgar, her father, I mean – he was… a good man.”

 

Thursday waited.

 

“Sometimes I wished-“ Morse gave a harsh bark of laughter, and didn’t finish the thought. “Stupid,” he said instead.

 

“Did you talk to him? At the hospital?”

 

Morse shook his head. “I sat with him for a while, but he didn’t wake up. He died, last night. I didn’t even…”

 

“I’m sorry, lad.” Thursday watched Morse shrug, and then said neutrally, “It’s not so long since your own father died.”

 

The terrible accuracy of the comment left Morse drained. Because there’d been a time when he’d looked up to Edgar, when he’d wished fiercely that the man could have been his father instead of the one he actually had. It had been losing something twice over, when he and Susan had…

 

He cleared his throat, managed a, “No.”

 

There was quiet between them for a moment. “But you talked to his wife?”

 

Morse grimaced. “Let’s just say she never approved of me.”

 

The sting of it still hadn’t faded – not from yesterday and not from all those years ago.

 

“Ah.”

 

Morse tapped his fingers lightly against the bar, his head feeling lighter and heavier all at once. “I don’t know why I mentioned it,” he mumbled. “I hadn’t seen them in years.”

 

A hand came to rest on his shoulder, broad and solid.

 

“Sometimes it’s the people we leave behind who leave the biggest mark on us.”

 

\---------------------------

 

The End


End file.
